Pre-paid card comeback may have bolstered the case for NBFCs' plastic play

With pre-paid card players back at the drawing board, the case for the entry of NBFCs into plastic may have got stronger

Last Thursday, the Financial Stability Report (FSR, June 2022) noted that “the advent of fintech has exposed the banking system to new risks which extend beyond prudential issues and often intersect with other public policy objectives relating to safeguarding of data privacy, cyber security, and consumer protection.”

This observation in the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) bi-annual publication is a clear indicator that fintech firms and their private equity backers may have to war-game from here on — and the central bank’s earlier diktat that pre-paid instruments (PPIs) cannot be funded from credit lines of non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) should